The planned reform of the Infection Protection Act has met with sharp criticism from the federal states in view of the peak number of corona infections.

For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 260,000 corona infections were reported to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) within one day on Thursday; on Friday there were still more than 252,836.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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The Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who is currently also the chairman of the Prime Ministers' Conference, told the FAZ that he was seeing "clear and cross-party criticism" of the traffic light government's plans for the new Corona legal basis from the federal states.

“Basic protection measures that have been agreed across the board and tried-and-tested instruments for combating pandemics will be abolished; instead, the draft outlines a patchwork of rules that people will hardly understand,” said Wüst, referring to the most recent statement by the Federal Government’s Council of Experts, from which it is crystal clear that short response times are needed to combat the pandemic.

"The current federal draft law harbors the risk of the exact opposite: long procedures instead of quick and legally secure action," Wüst told the FAZ. The Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Stefan Weil (SPD), also criticized the fact that, in view of the increasing incidences, the toolbox for fighting the pandemic was being restricted.

Don't throw away the fire extinguisher if it's still burning.

Kretschmann: Grossly negligent procedure

Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) told the FAZ: "I think it's grossly negligent if the federal government hands over effective instruments for emergencies without need." Above all, wearing a mask remains "central" as an effective means, it says will be massively curtailed with the draft.” The “hotspot concept of the new Infection Protection Act” is far too complicated, the measures of the new law that have now been presented in a hurry are not an effective “basic catalogue”, but merely a “trunk structure”.

“This leaves the countries with little scope for quick, effective intervention.

But that's what matters."

The Federal Ministry of Health did not want to comment on the criticism of the federal states.

When presenting the draft law, Lauterbach made it clear on Wednesday that the federal states had been involved in several ways: in the prime ministers' conference with the federal government and explicitly again at the health ministers' conference on Monday of this week.

As can be heard, Lauterbach had presented the changes to the law to his colleagues there, the first versions of the amendment had been available to the state governments long before.

Both Lauterbach and Justice Minister Buschmann pointed out that the interests of the federal states had also been taken into account, but also made it clear that the Infection Protection Act was a federal competence and that it did not require the approval of the Bundesrat, the chamber of the federal states.

According to the RKI, the seven-day incidence rose to 1439.0.

Across Germany, 249 deaths were recorded within 24 hours.